1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of effecting payment by means of a cash card equipped with an electronic purse.
2. Description of the Related Art
A novel type of cash card is at present being introduced in different parts of the world. This cash card is a so-called smart card that includes a chip, into which money can be loaded. When the card is used for payment, the card is inserted into a pay terminal, such as a pay till, and the amount concerned is withdrawn from the sum stored in the chip. The sum of money stored in the chip is thus counted down by the amount paid. Money can be transferred to the chip in the cash card from, e.g., a bank account or the like, at a bank or at a special terminal intended for this purpose.
An EMV card is an example of this type of card at present being introduced, where EMV stands for Eurocard, American Express and Visa. Such cards are tied to a credit card account with respective cash card companies. Data relating, inter alia, to the account number is stored in the chip and/or on a traditional magnetic tape on the rear side of the card.
One problem with the use of such cards is that the card owner is not always aware of the extent of the funds available in the card chip. This is particularly the case when the card owner purchases a service that is debited at a later date, i.e. when the card owner is not aware of the final charge. Vehicle parking fees, the use of card-operated telephone boxes, etc., are examples of such services. Conventional credit card transactions are also relatively expensive, and it is therefore desirable to avoid such transactions.
Another problem resides in the use of motorized cash card readers, because they require the availability of personnel to open the machine when it fails to feed-out a card that has been xe2x80x9cswallowedxe2x80x9d by the motorized card reader. Consequently, a manual card reader is preferred with which the user pushes in his/her card and manually withdraws the card. One problem with so-called smart cards in this respect is that the card must be inserted into the card reader as the transaction is carried out. Thus, a transaction cannot be carried out through the medium of the chip if the user withdraws the card prematurely.
The present invention solves these problems.
The present invention thus relates to a method of effecting payment with a cash card that includes an electronic purse, such as a so-called smart card which includes a so-called chip, into which a sum of money can be entered. The card is read in a pay terminal, such as a pay till when the card is used for payment, wherein an amount concerned is subtracted from the sum stored in the chip. The card includes data relating to a cash card number to which the card is tied. When the card is read in the cash card reader of a pay terminal, the cash card number is read and registered so as to enable a transaction to be performed, and the amount of money available on the chip is also read and registered. The pay terminal is caused to withdraw the amount concerned from the chip only when the chip contains sufficient funds to meet the full charge and the chip remains in the cash card reader for the duration of such a transaction, in which case the terminal is caused to erase the cash card number that had been registered, When the chip does not contain sufficient funds to effect a full payment or does not remain seated in the cash card reader, the pay terminal is caused to carry out a conventional cash card transaction.